M contents/articles/hex.md → contents/articles/hex.md

@@ -7,38 +7,38 @@ content-type: article
 timestamp: 1734263361
 -----
 
-I have a page on my personal wiki system (which is written in [min](/min) with a [h3](/h3) frontend, and *still* closed-source) titled _Use cases for a new programming language_. The first line I wrote is the following:
+I have a page on my personal wiki system (which is written in [min](/min) with a [h3](/h3) frontend, and *still* closed-source, unfortunately) titled _Use cases for a new programming language_. The first line I wrote is the following:
 
 > A new programming language should only be created if it helps addressing a specific, practical use case
 
-Right. That was meant to dissuade me to embark in endless quests for creating yet another (pointless?) little language that _probably_ doesn't really solve any practical purpose. I have a bunch of those lying around or even half-designed in my personal wiki, and of course [min](https://min-lang.org) has been my go-to personal project for many years, and I still enjoy tinkering with it.
+Right. That was meant to dissuade me to embark in endless quests for creating yet another pointless little language that doesn't really solve any practical purpose. I have a bunch of those lying around or even half-designed in my personal wiki, and of course [min](https://min-lang.org) has been my go-to personal project for many years. I still enjoy tinkering with it from time to time.
 
 But...
 
-I still wanted to create a new language. The problem with min is that by emphasizing practicality more and more, it became more of a single-file, batteries-included programming language that can be used to create web servers, make HTTPS requests, process XML files, ...things like that.
+I still wanted to create a new language. The problem with min is that by emphasizing practicality more and more, it became more of a single-file, batteries-included programming language that can be used to create web servers, make HTTPS requests, process XML files, ..."big" things like that.
 
-The syntax also evolved quite a bit to support complex data types, it has sigils, and other oddities (bang-postfixed auto-popping symbols, anyone?). And it is also not that small anymore. Well over 1MB on some platforms. It statically links OpenSSL for Heaven's sake.
+The syntax also evolved quite a bit to support complex data types, it has sigils, and other oddities (bang-postfixed auto-popping symbols, anyone?). It is also not that small anymore: well over 1MB on some platforms (it statically links OpenSSL for Heaven's sake).
 
-And it is written in Nim. Because I forgot how to program in C. Sometimes I wish I invested the same amount of time in re-learning C rather than having picked a new slightly non-mainstream language to build my ecosystem with. But it's fine, these are not regrets, everything helps shaping up the future, I suppose.
+And it is written in Nim. Because I forgot how to program in C after uni. Sometimes I wish I had invested the same amount of time in re-learning C rather than having picked a new, non-mainstream language to build my ecosystem with. But it's fine, everything helps shaping up the future, I suppose.
 
 ### Why _hex_?
 
-I wanted to create a language that:
+I always wanted to create a programming language that:
 
 - had a really minimalist syntax
 - was small in size
 - was cross-platform (compiling to WebAssembly and also [αcτµαlly pδrταblε εxεcµταblε](https://justine.lol/ape.html))
-- was implemented in C (that was more of a personal thing than anything else, but C ain't going anywhere as a language, at least)
+- was implemented in C (that was more of a personal thing than anything else, but C ain't going anywhere, at least)
 - was concatenative (I am still fascinated by the concatenative programming paradigm)
-- was able to do basic operations on strings and numbers, and delegate everything else to external programs
-- was able to be used to create shell scripts, used as glue code, etc.
-- had some quirks. Not many, but _some_ to make it interesting and fun to play with
-- was easy to understand and useful to learn more about concatenative programming
+- was able to do basic operations on strings, numbers, I/O, files and delegate everything else to external programs
+- could be used to create shell scripts, used as glue code, etc.
+- had some quirks. Not many, but _some_, to make it interesting and fun to play with
+- was easy to understand and useful to learn more about concatenative programming even for non-programmers
 
-Then the name. It took me weeks to come up with a good name. I then settled with _hex_ because:
+Then the name. It took me weeks to come up with a good name. I then finally went with _hex_ because:
 
 - It's short and memorable
-- It has not really been used for a popular programming language yet (go try find 1-3 letter words that are not, you'd be surprised)
+- It has not really been used for a popular programming language yet (go try find 1-3 letter words that are not already taken)
 - It has something magical about it (besides thinking about hexadecimal numbers, it also means _spell_ or curse)
 
 ### MVPL (Minimum Viable Programming Language)
@@ -50,15 +50,15 @@ 
 - integers
 - strings
 - arrays 
-- exec external processes
+- execute external processes
 - variables
 - define functions 
-- flow control: conditionals, loops
+- flow control with conditionals and loops
 - error handling
-- file management
-- std io
+- standard input and output
+- file input and output
 
-...and here's a list of things that are _nice to have_:
+...and here's a list of things that I consider _nice to have_:
 
 - floats
 - objects
@@ -70,13 +70,13 @@ - networking
 - xml
 - json
 
-I hope that _lexical scoping_ in the _nice to have_ made you chuckle. I know it would be bad, but _technically_ you wouldn't really need lexical scoping, really, especially in case of a concatenative programming language where you don't necessarily need variables, global symbols would probably be OK.
+I hope that _lexical scoping_ in the _nice to have_ made you chuckle. I know it would be bad, but _technically_ you wouldn't really need lexical scoping, really, especially in case of a concatenative programming language where you don't necessarily need variables.
 
 I decided to put this into practice when creating hex. And that's why, hex:
 
 - supports only integers, strings, and lists (quotations). It doesn't have floats or dictionaries, even.
 - it comes with 64 native symbol for basic stuff, and lets you define your own (global) symbols, to store data and also define the equivalent of functions.
-- _everything_ and I mean, literally everything from flow control to error handling, and I/O is done by applying symbols on the stack.
+- _everything_ and I mean, literally everything from flow control to error handling and I/O is done by applying symbols on the stack.